Ohio University professors have developed a medication that could help prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes, an illness that is projected to affect one in every three people in their lifetime.
Ohio University researchers think they may have developed a new string of medications that could help slow the effects of type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes develops when the body no longer uses insulin properly. It is an illness the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects will affect one in every three people in their lifetime.
“Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions, and it’s continuing to project exponentially, so we really need to have an effective drug,” Kelly McCall, an assistant professor of endocrinology at HCOM, said.
The disease is primarily caused by obesity, age and insulin resistance, according to the CDC.
“Our goal is to have a potent drug that is cheap to manufacture and can attack the main problems associated with diabetes, and we may have that drug,” McCall said.
The medication, C-10, and its newer derivatives help to prevent type 2 diabetes by reducing inflammation, preventing fat from increasing and increasing a person’s insulin sensitivity.
“When it comes to type 2 diabetes, C-10 is much more effective in preventing the disease rather than reversing it,” Frank Schwartz, a professor of endocrinology at OU’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, said.
Schwartz, who was a part of the team researching C-10, called the medication “a new approach to reversing insulin resistance.”
The medication is the product of more than a decade of research and was funded partially by $2.6 million in grant money from the National Institutes of Health.
McCall and Schwartz have also worked with derivatives of the drug that professors from the department of chemistry and the department of chemical engineering have helped develop.
Those drugs, all based on C-10, may have an even more pronounced effect with fewer side effects. The two professors will continue to study C-10 and its derivatives in hopes that they will achieve clinical trials within the next five years, Schwartz said. The clinical process trial can take around 10 years, McCall said.
OU has a history of working to find treatments for diabetes. In December, OU’s Diabetes Institute received the Excellence in Diabetes Care award from the American Osteopathic Foundation. The award includes a $10,000 grant.
With the grant money, members of the institute will create a registry that will include a list of warning signs, obtained from participating clinics, that someone may have diabetes.
The registry will track a person’s: weight, blood pressure, blood glucose levels and other factors such as exercise and family members who have diabetes, Elizabeth Beverly, professor of epidemiology in HCOM and co-director of the Research Division at the Diabetes Institute, said.
“Taking care of diabetes is difficult,” Beverly said. “We want to understand all the barriers related to diabetes to help prevent diabetes and improve complications that it can lead to.”
Kenneth Johnson, dean of HCOM, said the development of C-10 and its derivatives represents an example of positive research coming from the medical school.
“We have some truly outstanding researchers at the college,” Johnson said. “They are doing incredible work in a breadth of (studies).”
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